Early next month, the WATER CRIMES project will hold both a European Workshop on Water Crimes and a project mid-term meeting.

The European Workshop on WATER CRIMES will be held on November 10–11, 2016 in A Coruna, Spain. The workshop is first gathering of experts in the field and proposes to establish a meeting point for experts from all over Europe in order to define water crime. The works also includes designing a threat-and-risk assessment. The project consortium is expecting experts from government institutions, academia, research institutions and international organisations from all EU member states,as well as the United States and Australia.

The WATER CRIMES Project consortium will also hold its mid-term meeting to discuss stages of progress and various points of the ongoing project activities on November 09-10 in the premises of the University of A Coruna.

A detailed programme of the workshop can be found in the draft agenda.

The European Workshop on Water Crimes is organised within the framework of the WATER CRIMES project, which started in January 2016 and is co-funded by the Internal Security Fund of the European Union. The primary aims of the project are to provide the first strategic analysis of crimes against water resources in Europe and to advance the knowledge in this field through: a) making an inventory of the various forms of crime that threaten this fundamental good, its management, the related supply chains and infrastructures; b) analysing the potential impact and the risk of these crimes in Europe; c) developing mid-term outlook of the trends of these crimes in Europe; d) making policy recommendations for mitigating strategies.

For contact details and more information about the activities and partners in this research project, please visit our website www.watercrimes.eu.

Crises, Economy and Punishment:The influence of the Great Recession on crime and penalityInternational two-day conference

CALL FOR PAPERS
Over the last decades, a significant number of path-breaking contributions have read the evolution of crime and penality from a politico-economic perspective. Most remarkably, the analytical framework of the Political Economy of Punishment has been pivotal in reframing critical thought on penality, by relating punishment to economic variables, such as unemployment, economic cycles or the level of exploitation of the workforce. Along with those works, over the last fifteen years or so another line of inquiry has been unfolding, which is aimed at explaining the rise of punitiveness (and sometimes the evolution of crime) from the standpoint of the rise of neoliberalism, understood as an economic doxa but also as a political project. Moreover, all throughout the last century key criminologists have widely analysed the relation between economic variables and crime. However, those challenging literatures have rarely addressed the concept of economic crises and their implications for crime and penality.
It appears, though, to be particularly timely to reflect on the evolution of crime and the contours of penality from the standpoint of the current economic crisis. Not in vain, what has been named the Great Recession, that from 2007 affected wide regions of the Global North in particular, has entailed era-defining economic, political, social and cultural transformations. The field of crime and punishment has not been immune to these mutations. In the US context, key authors have recently pointed out that the economic crisis has crucially contributed to the momentum of an emergent new –and less punitive- common sense on penality. By the same token, in Europe the decades-long cycle of increasing punitiveness seems to have come to a halt during the recession period, especially in countries such as Italy and Spain, but also in the UK and Nordic countries. By contrast, South American countries, which so far have been scarcely affected by the Great Recession, have witnessed a most prominent and uninterrupted rise of punitiveness throughout the last decade. As regards the crime issue, the economic recession has not led to an increment of crime rates, but rather the opposite, at least in the Global North.
In sum, the Conference aims to debate the influence of economic crises, and particularly of the Great Recession, on crime and punishment. Likewise, the Conference seeks to contribute thereby to the rich academic tradition which develops a politico-economic reading of crime and penality. Moreover, the Conference is aimed at reflecting on the allegedly arising new common sense on punishment, and on its forthcoming consequences.
Therefore, we will consider contributions on a wide range of issues that encompass the broad theme of Crises, Economy and Punishment: The influence of the Great Recession on crime and penality, particularly on the themes of:

Organization:
ECRIM, University of A Corunna, Spain (www.ecrim.es)
Academic chairs: José Ángel Brandariz (University of A Coruna, Spain), Russell Hogg (Queensland University of Technology, Australia) and Máximo Sozzo (National University of the Litoral, Argentina)
Organizing committee: Patricia Faraldo (University of A Corunna, Spain, Chair), David Castro (University of A Corunna, Spain), Beatriz Cruz (University of Cadiz, Spain), Ignacio González (University of Girona, Spain), María de los Ángeles Fuentes (University of A Corunna, Spain), Daniel Jiménez (University of Zaragoza, Spain), Carmen Lamela (University of A Corunna, Spain), Silvia Rodríguez (University of A Corunna, Spain)
The Conference is mainly funded by a research grant awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy

Abstract guidelines:
Proposals should be titled and should not exceed 250 words. Please include the proposer’s name and contact details along with his or her university affiliation.Please submit abstracts via email to: dcastrolinares@gmail.com
The papers presented at the workshop may be eventually published in a book containing the workshop proceedings.

Closing date:5 April 2016
Decisions about the acceptance of the papers will be made by late April 2016.

In recent years, a prominent piece of academic literature has analysed the transformations in the field of punishment through the lens of what has been called neoliberalism. Several theoretical perspectives, such as the governmentality studies, or a variety of analyses on post-welfarist punishment, have highlighted the influence of economic policies and the neoliberal mode of government on the recent evolution of penal policies.

These theoretical frameworks appear to be especially relevant to face the current challenges of the field of punishment and social control. Yet, a crucial historical event has further strengthened the interest of this sort of analysis. In effect, the study of punishment from the perspective of politics and political economy has gained momentum with the beginning of what has been termed the Great Recession. The conference is focused on this theoretical field, and it aims to reflect on punishment both in relation to and beyond neoliberalism.

Therefore, we will consider contributions on a wide range of issues that encompass the broad theme of Beyond Neoliberalism? Politics and Punishment in Contemporary Societies, particularly on the themes of: